Major Gun Company Begins Asking Customers to Fight Obama's Proposed Reforms

[Galraedia]

As President Obama announces a set of reforms to deal with gun violence in America, the gun lobby is mobilizing to defeat it. The gun industry-controlled advocacy group, the National Rifle Association, has a new ad accusing the president of being of a "hypocrite" for having armed security for his own family.

Meanwhile, gun manufacturers like Strum, Ruger & Co. -- a Connecticut-based maker of rifles and pistols, and a major benefactor to the NRA, as I reported last month -- have stepped up to provide direct advocacy.

The New Hampshire Business Review reports today that Ruger is now asking its customers to contact lawmakers to fight reform. Ruger has launched an advocacy section of its website, which reads: "Given the forces assembling against us, merely relying upon lobbying efforts is insufficient. Law-abiding firearms owners must stand up and be heard."

The website provides a form letter to send to lawmakers, and other ways to spread the word. Already, at least one local gun club is promoting the gun company's message.

Typically, gun and ammunition companies prefer to hide behind ideological groups like the NRA to pursue lobbying campaigns. But the stakes are apparently too high this time around.

Read more: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Major-Gun-Company-Begins-A-by-Lee-Fang-130120-368.html

[Fish man]

1. Shout this far and wide

The gun industry only cares about its profits and not about your children.

[Hoyt]

2. Screw the gun profiteers.

[Recursion]

3. They know NRA is political deadweight right now

The point of the NRA's insanity is that we look at them rather than gunmakers. Their decoy may have finally exploded.

[Duckhunter935]

5. Yep

I think the NRA is so far from what it used to be as to be ridiculous.

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. Wah! Wah! Wah!

Awwwww. Poor widdle babies gonna go bwoke. Wah! Wah! Wah!

[NickB79]

6. Oddly enough, their founder was in favor of the 1994 AWB

Bill Ruger would be spinning in his grave right now. This is his quote from the late 1980's:

The best way to address the firepower concern is therefore not to try to outlaw or license many millions of older and perfectly legitimate firearms (which would be a licensing effort of staggering proportions) but to prohibit the possession of high capacity magazines. By a simple, complete, and unequivocal ban on large capacity magazines, all the difficulty of defining "assault rifles" and "semi-automatic rifles" is eliminated. The large capacity magazine itself, separate or attached to the firearm, becomes the prohibited item. A single amendment to Federal firearms laws could prohibit their possession or sale and would effectively implement these objectives.

And shortly thereafter this was the press statement released by the Sporting Arms and Ammunitions Manufacturers Institute (SAAMI) in 1989:

The possession of any "extra capacity" magazine in combination with the possession of a semi-automatic firearm, other than .22 caliber Rimfire, should be regulated. "Extra capacity magazines" are detachable magazines which hold in excess of 10(!) centerfire rifle cartridges or shotgun shells, or detachable pistol magazines which hold in excess of 15 centerfire cartridges.

"Semi-automatic firearms as such should not be the object of any legislative prohibition. It is actually the large magazine capacity, rather than the semi-automatic operation, which is the proper focus of this debate."

The sad thing is, I think it would have ultimately been a win/win for both the gun rights and gun control lobbies had this been passed then and we'd been done with it.